Freedom for Muhammad Gad!

Congratulations. The Egypt-Israel gas pipelines were attacked in Arish for the fourth time on the row in 6 months. If the regime won’t halt the gas supplies to the apartheid state of Israel, then the people will.

There needs to be an article written on this. How Western liberals projected their own harmful (politically) wishes on Arab political conduct in recent months. They promoted the notion that Arab people were inspired by Gene Sharp or Martin Luther King and that they so strictly adhered to non-violence. So untrue. Comrade Hossam wrote on Egyptian case, how the revolt in Suez for example was an armed insurrection. People in Tahrir square are still calling for execution of Mubarak and his cronies. Look around the Arab world: where are the non-violent protests? Some protests are non-violent–like in Yemen–but other elements of the opposition in Yemen have (and use) artillery pieces. Arab peoples have decided to try to overthrow their governments, by all means necessary. The notion that there is a firm belief in non-violence is folly, and I am not apologizing about it, because they believe that against the violence of Arab regimes, and Israel and its sponsors, violence against enemies can’t be ruled out. And notice that when Arabs use violence against regimes that US dislike (as in Libya), the US is impressed and is willing to lend a hand of violence. But when Hizbullah in May 6, 2008, revolted against a conspiracy by pro-Saudi March 14, the US screamed for months about the inappropriateness of violence in opposition. Of course, the US is only fooling those who don’t follow the news–i.e. Americans.

Suez was dubbed as Egypt’s Sidi Bouzid during the 18 day uprising. The city witnessed some of the bloodiest crackdowns by the police, and also some of the fiercest resistance by the protesters. In the video above, shot on the Friday of Anger, January 28, the revolutionaries in Suez after storming the police stations and confiscating the rifles, are using them to fight back the police.

One of the biggest myths invented by the media, tied to this whole Gene Sharp business: the Egyptian revolution was “peaceful.” I’m afraid it wasn’t. The revolution (like any other revolution) witnessed violence by the security forces that led to the killing of at least 846 protesters.

But the people did not sit silent and take this violence with smiles and flowers. We fought back. We fought back the police and Mubarak’s thugs with rocks, Molotov cocktails, sticks, swords and knives. The police stations which were stormed almost in every single neighborhood on the Friday of Anger–that was not the work of “criminals” as the regime and some middle class activists are trying to propagate. Protesters, ordinary citizens, did that.

Egyptians understand well what a police station is for. Every family has a member who got abused, tortured or humiliated by the local police force in his/her neighborhood. And I’m not even talking here about the State Security Police torture factories. I’m talking about the “ordinary police.”

Other symbols of power and corruption were attacked by the protesters and torched down during the uprising. Revolutionary violence is never random. Those buildings torched down or looted largely belonged to Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

In a number of provinces like in N Sinai and Suez, arms were seized by protesters who used them back against the police to defend themselves. State Security Police office in Rafah and Arish, for example, were blown up using RPGs, hand grenades and automatic rifles, while gas pipelines heading to Jordan and Israel were attacked.

Am I condemning this violence? Totally not. Every single revolution in history witnessed its share of violence. The violence always starts on the hands of the state, not the people. The people are forced to pick up arms or whatever they can put their hands on to protect themselves.

May all our martyrs rest in peace. Their blood will not go in vain. Revolution continues.

UPDATE: Minutes after I published this posting, the gas pipelines in N Sinai that exports to Israel have been reportedly come under new attack. I’m still looking up info.

UPDATE: Here is a report from the BBC, while Shorouk has posted a video of the explosion:

An audio recording of a police transmission during the Friday of Anger in Alexandria, shows the demoralization of the police, as they come under attack from the revolutionaries.

The car burning in the square was one of the police cars.